It was a little after 9:30 p.m. this Thursday, September 30 when, at the turn of a classic deliberation about the updating of the city’s workforce, the president of the right-wing opposition group, Sébastien Trouillas, asked a question about the municipal police force and asked if the city wished to take advantage of the deliberation recently voted by the Regional Council to help cities which so wish to arm their municipal police with lethal weapons. Before moving on to the next point, the assistant for school life, Dominique Lanoë (LFI), reacted on the term lethal and expressed his reserve. “I believed that the purpose of the police was to protect the population, not necessarily to have weapons to kill them.”
Words that made the opposition group jump. “Are the police killing the population?” questioned Sébastien Trouillas on several occasions, demanding explanations from the mayor. “You are despicable”, also reacted his running mate Pascal Castillon, policeman in professional life, before the two elected left the room.
At the end of the city council, before the sequence of vows, it was the president of the centrist group, Maxime Megret-Merger, who spoke to return to the incident, letting it be known that his group was shocked and condemned the comments. of the LFI deputy. “We do not do theater and we have not left the municipal council, but we do not consider that the municipal police, if we put them weapons, they kill their fellow citizens”, he said, asking the mayor to take a stand, as head of the municipal police. The elected representative also demanded that the words of the deputy be recorded in the minutes of the council.
“I think the assembly got carried away“
“I think the assembly got carried away. Obviously the police are there to protect our fellow citizens ”, reacted the mayor, Hélène de Comarmond (PS). “As far as I am concerned, I think that the municipal police also and above all have a preventive mission and I would like them to accomplish this preventive mission as best as possible ”, she added, returning to actions related to security in the municipality and insisting on the complementarity between national police and municipal police. “The debate on the weaponry of the municipal police is a debate which transcends this problematic and denies the reality that the actors must each have their role (…)“
The case takes a national turn
The next day, October 1, Sébastien Trouillas expressed his anger on social networks, relayed a few days later by the mayor Libres of L’Haÿ-les-Roses, Vincent Jeanbrun, who posted the extract from the council showing the declaration of the elected LFI and the reaction of Sébastien Trouillas and his running mate. The mayor of L’Haÿ gives him his support and appeals to the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. His message will be retweeted over 800 times in a matter of hours. “There were almost 60,000 views of the video and 150,000 impressions. This is a very good thing, it was taken up in particular by the police unions who were very shocked ”, notes the mayor who is pleased that the minister has taken up his pen to demand explanations. “We would not tolerate these remarks towards teachers or doctors, we should not tolerate them for the police”, let go of the chosen one. Yesterday, CNews took over and the case went national.
A video that does not show the mayor’s reaction
While the Minister of the Interior has demanded explanations from the mayor, the city is surprised, through its lawyer, that the Minister of the Interior has not taken cognizance of the entire municipal council , yet available online. The mayor was indeed explained on the subject at the end of the meeting, after the arrest of Maxime Mégret-Merger. Regarding the words of the elected LFI, the lawyer evokes a “clumsiness” and regret that this “Error was blunted” on “Taking the words out of their context”.
The city also reacted in a statement, denouncing the spread of a video that alters “Voluntarily the reality of words and facts.” The press release then recalls the explanations provided by the mayor at the end of the meeting and indicates that “In the days that followed, this position was reaffirmed with the relevant authorities.”
City does not rule out legal action for false information
“The city of Cachan has been working for the development of prevention in terms of security since the creation of the municipal police in 1980. Since its creation, the coordination mechanisms, allowing for sustained collaboration between national and municipal police, have been put in place. , always renewed and amplified even recently. (…) However, it would seem that this clarification, during the session, did not find the listening of these elected representatives of the opposition who, today, prefer to relay a video-montage broadcast on social networks by the city councilor of the neighboring town, and which only maintains this sterile controversy. ” And to denounce words “Truncated and edited to undermine the deeply republican practice of the mayor”. the city adds that the mayor “Does not exclude taking legal action, both against the author of the contested video montage and against any person who repeats it, thereby disseminating false information. ”
Vincent Jeanbrun recalls for his part that the mayor did not react at the time of the exit of his deputy, when the two elected opposition members demanded explanations and insists that there was no public apologies.
For his part, Sébastien Trouillas does not intend to calm things down either. He launched a petition to demand the resignation of the deputy and decided to organize a demonstration next week, Tuesday October 19 at 6 p.m., in which the mayor of L’Haÿ indicates that he will participate to “Support the police”.
Watch the full video
The first exchange takes place at 2:08 a.m.
The second at 2:40
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